Environmental changes during secondary succession in a tropical dry forest in Mexico

Vegetation and environment change mutually during secondary succession, yet the idiosyncrasies of the vegetation effect on the understorey environment are poorly understood. To test whether the successional understorey environment changes predictably and is shaped by the structure and seasonality of tropical dry forests, we estimated basal area and vegetation cover, and measured understorey temperature, light and moisture conditions, in 17 plots forming a 60-y chronosequence and a mature forest. Light and air and soil temperature decreased with time (75-15% of open-sky radiation, 31.7-29.3 °C, and +2.5 °C to -0.5 °C relative to ambient, respectively), whereas relative humidity increased (67-74%). Soil water availability increased with early-successional development (-45 to -1 kPa) but decreased afterwards (to -18 kPa). The first axis of a PCA of the rainy-season environment explained 60% of the variation and was strongly related to air temperature and relative humidity. During tropical dry-forest succession, such factors may be more important than light, the reduction in which is not extreme compared with taller and more vertically stratified wet forests. Seasonality significantly affected the successional environmental gradients, which were marked mainly during the wet season. Environmental heterogeneity was higher in the wet than in the dry season, and larger for resources (light and water) than for conditions (temperature and humidity). The wet-season increase in environmental heterogeneity potentially creates differential growing scenarios; the environmental harshness of the dry season would mostly challenge seedling survival

Spontaneous symmetry breaking as a resource for noncritically squeezed light

In the last years we have proposed the use of the mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking with the purpose of generating perfect quadrature squeezing. Here we review previous work dealing with spatial (translational and rotational) symmetries, both on optical parametric oscillators and four-wave mixing cavities, as well as present new results. We then extend the phenomenon to the polarization state of the signal field, hence introducing spontaneous polarization symmetry breaking. Finally we propose a Jaynes-Cummings model in which the phenomenon can be investigated at the single-photon-pair level in a non-dissipative case, with the purpose of understanding it from a most fundamental point of view.Comment: Review for the proceedings of SPIE Photonics Europe. 11 pages, 5 figures

Virtues and Flaws of the Pauli Potential

Quantum simulations of complex fermionic systems suffer from a variety of challenging problems. In an effort to circumvent these challenges, simpler ``semi-classical'' approaches have been used to mimic fermionic correlations through a fictitious ``Pauli potential''. In this contribution we examine two issues. First, we address some of the inherent difficulties in a widely used version of the Pauli potential. Second, we refine such a potential in a manner consistent with the most basic properties of a cold Fermi gas, such as its momentum distribution and its two-body correlation function.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure

Variability of the transport of anthropogenic CO2 at the Greenland-Portugal OVIDE section:Controlling mechanisms

The interannual to decadal variability in the transport of anthropogenic CO2 (Cant) across the subpolar North Atlantic (SPNA) is investigated, using summer data of the FOUREX and OVIDE high-resolution transoceanic sections, from Greenland to Portugal, occupied six times from 1997 to 2010. The transport of Cant across this section, Tcant hereafter, is northward, with a mean value of 254 ± 29 kmol s-1 over the 1997-2010 period. We find that Tcant undergoes interannual variability, masking any trend different from 0 for this period. In order to understand the mechanisms controlling the variability of Tcant across the SPNA, we propose a new method that quantifies the transport of Cant caused by the diapycnal and isopycnal circulation. The diapycnal component yields a large northward transport of Cant (400 ± 29 kmol s-1) that is partially compensated by a southward transport of Cant caused by the isopycnal component (-171 ± 11 kmol s-1), mainly localized in the Irminger Sea. Most importantly, the diapycnal component is found to be the main driver of the variability of Tcant across the SPNA. Both the Meridional Overturning Circulation (computed in density coordinates, MOCσ) and the Cant increase in the water column have an important effect on the variability of the diapycnal component and of Tcant itself. Based on this analysis, we propose a simplified estimator for the variability of T cant based on the intensity of the MOCσ and on the difference of Cant between the upper and lower limb of the MOCσ (ΔCant). This estimator shows a good consistency with the diapycnal component of T cant, and help to disentangle the effect of the variability of both the circulation and the Cant increase on the Tcant variability. We find that ΔCant keeps increasing over the past decade, and it is very likely that the continuous Cant increase in the water masses will cause an increase in Tcant across the SPNA at long timescale. Nevertheless, at the timescale analyzed here (1997-2010), the MOCσ controls the T cant variability, blurring any Tcant trend. Extrapolating the observed ΔCant increase rate and considering the predicted slow-down of 25% of the MOCσ, Tcant across the SPNA is expected to increase by 430 kmol s-1 during the 21st century. Consequently, an increase in the storage rate of Cant in the SPNA could be envisaged

The Orbit of the New Milky Way Globular Cluster FSR1716 =VVV-GC05

Indexación: Scopus.We use deep, multi-epoch near-IR images of the VISTA Variables in the Via Lictea (VVV) Survey to measure proper motions (PMs) of stars in the Milky Way globular cluster (GC) FSR1716 = VVV-GC05. The colormagnitude diagram of this object, made by using PM-selected members, shows an extended horizontal branch, nine confirmed RR Lyrae (RRL) members in the instability strip, and possibly several hotter stars extending to the blue. Based on the fundamental-mode (ab-type) RRL stars that move coherently with the cluster, we confirmed that FSR1716 is an Oosterhoff I GC with a mean period aPabn = 0.574 days. Intriguingly, we detect tidal extensions to both sides of this cluster in the spatial distribution of PM-selected member stars. Also, one of the confirmed RRabs is located -11 arcmin in projection from the cluster center, suggesting that FSR1716 may be losing stars due to the gravitational interaction with the Galaxy. We also measure radial velocities (RVs) for five cluster red giants selected using the PMs. The combination of RVs and PMs allow us to compute for the first time the orbit of this GC, using an updated Galactic potential. The orbit results to be confined within|Zmax| < 2.0 kpc, and has eccentricity 0.4 < e < 0.6, with perigalactic distance 1.5 < Rperi (kpc) < 2.3, and apogalactic distance 5.3 < Rapo (kpc) < 6.4. We conclude that, in agreement with its relatively low metallicity ([Fe/H] =-1.4 dex), this is an inner-halo GC plunging into the disk of the Galaxy. As such, this is a unique object with which to test the dynamical processes that contribute to the disruption of Galactic GCs. © 2018. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aacd0

Prosopis, Retama monosperma. Phragmites y Arundo donax en cosechas sucesivas a uno y dos años de crecimiento, para la elaboración de pasta celulósica y papel

Se evalúa la aptitud de ciertas especies regeneradoras de terrenos degradados: Prosopis (variedades: alba y juliflora),Retama monosperma, Phragmites y Arundo donax, para la fabricación de pastas celulósicas y hojas de papel, mediante un proceso de pasteo organosolv alcalino. Se caracterizan y comparan las materias primas, pastas celulósicas y hojas de papel, para cosechas de un año (más rebrotes de un año de edad, después de haberlas cortado al año) y dos años de crecimiento. Las especies Retama monosperma, Phragmites y Arundodonax muestran potencialidad para su aprovechamientoindustrial, en cosechas de corta rotación, para la obtenciónde pastas celulósicas y papel. Los números kappa de las pastas de 2º año están entre 10,3 y 12,6, con números de tracción entre 13,7 y 20,9 kNm·kg–1 en las pastas sin refinar. Sin embargo la explotación industrial de las dos variedades de Prosopis precisaría su adecuación a tiempos de explotación más largos, que los estudiados en este trabajo

Lepton Number Violation from Colored States at the LHC

The possibility to search for lepton number violating signals at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the colored seesaw scenario is investigated. In this context the fields that generate neutrino masses at the one-loop level are scalar and Majorana fermionic color-octets of SU(3). Due to the QCD strong interaction these states may be produced at the LHC with a favorable rate. We study the production mechanisms and decays relevant to search for lepton number violation signals in the channels with same-sign dileptons. In the simplest case when the two fermionic color-octets are degenerate in mass, one could use their decays to distinguish between the neutrino spectra. We find that for fermionic octets with mass up to about 1 TeV the number of same-sign dilepton events is larger than the standard model background indicating a promising signal for new physics.Comment: minor corrections, added reference

Quadrature and polarization squeezing in a dispersive optical bistability model

We theoretically study quadrature and polarization squeezing in dispersive optical bistability through a vectorial Kerr cavity model describing a nonlinear cavity filled with an isotropic chi(3) medium in which self-phase and cross-phase modulation, as well as four--wave mixing, occur. We derive expressions for the quantum fluctuations of the output field quadratures as a function of which we express the spectrum of fluctuations of the output field Stokes parameters. We pay particular attention to study how the bifurcations affecting the non-null linearly polarized output mode squeezes the orthogonally polarized vacuum mode, and show how this produces polarization squeezing.Comment: 10 text pages + 12 figure

Stability and Decay Rates of Non-Isotropic Attractive Bose-Einstein Condensates

Non-Isotropic Attractive Bose-Einstein condensates are investigated with Newton and inverse Arnoldi methods. The stationary solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation and their linear stability are computed. Bifurcation diagrams are calculated and used to find the condensate decay rates corresponding to macroscopic quantum tunneling, two-three body inelastic collisions and thermally induced collapse. Isotropic and non-isotropic condensates are compared. The effect of anisotropy on the bifurcation diagram and the decay rates is discussed. Spontaneous isotropization of the condensates is found to occur. The influence of isotropization on the decay rates is characterized near the critical point.Comment: revtex4, 11 figures, 2 tables. Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Dumping inflaton energy density out of this world

We argue that a brane world with a warped, infinite extra dimension allows for the inflaton to decay into the bulk so that after inflation, the effective dark energy disappears from our brane. This is achieved by the redshifting of the decay products into infinity of the 5th dimension. As a consequence, all matter and CMB density perturbations could have their origin in the decay of a MSSM flat direction rather than the inflaton. We also discuss a string theoretical model where reheating after inflation may not affect the observable brane.Comment: 16 page